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Rogue PvP guide
Introduction In PvP, most classes will likely attempt to kite a rogue rather than engage one in melee combat. Warriors, other rogues, paladins, and occasionally (brave) shamans are the exceptions. To avoid excessive kiting, make smart use of your cooldowns (Sprint, Blind, Vanish, Preparation) and Crippling Poison. Specific play style and strategy may vary quite widely according to the rogue's talent build. Techniques Re-stealthing is an important rogue skill, and mastering this tactic may greatly improve survivability. This skill can enable a rogue to: * Blind, run out of combat. * Gouge, Sprint, run out of combat. * Vanish. * Apply Crippling Poison on the target and simply run away from combat. * Kidney Shot, run away from combat. From stealth, a rogue has many options available to him: * Sap, bandage. * Sap, wait for debuffs or a priest or warlock shield to run out, then Cheap Shot. * Sap, Cheap Shot, run away and restealth for extra points on the target. Against melee characters, stuns and disables are very important. Melee characters usually have high chances to parry/block melee attacks. Since all the Rogues moves are melee, this can easily throw off your timing. Stunning an opponent (and running behind them, forcing them to turn around) removes his ability to parry and your attacks, and lets your moves go through much smoother. Against melee characters wielding a slow weapon, stuns are even more important. A carefully timed kidney shot/gouge can mean avoiding an ugly chunk of Windfury. The best time to stun them is right before they swing. The worst time to stun is right after a swing. Just think of as a big spell with a 3.70 casting time. You wanna interrupt it as late as possible. Against pure casters (and even paladins and other classes like elemental shamans which rely heavily on spells), consider opening with a Garrote instead of cheap shot. Since Garrote (starting at rank 7) silences the opponent for three seconds (completely shutting down mages, priests, and locks), you can think of it as a three second Cheap Shot that costs 10 less energy and leaves a significant dot on the opponent. The silence effect is especially important now that pvp trinkets can remove any cc effects. Strategy In general, a rogue has three different play-styles available to him or her, namely: rush-down, control, and burst. Of these three styles, each talent build will tend to be strong in one and adequate/weak in the others. This section will cover each style in detail, including how they're used against opponents and to which talent builds they correspond. *Rush-Down Knowing how to play a rush-down style is utterly important in high level PVP. To summarize, "rushing down" an opponent means playing as aggressively as possible, using most of your combo points for offensively-minded finishers such as Slice and Dice or Rupture and burning your cooldowns to drop an opponent as soon as possible. In a pure rush down style, Vanish is usually used to avoid attacks and get in a quick Cheap Shot. The preferred opener is Garrote to maximize DOT damage and the preferred poisons are crippling and deadly/wound. In a rush-down style, constant movement is crucial to keeping an opponent disoriented and sticking to your target's back. Timing your Kicks and Gouges is essential when rushing down casters since you will be using your combo points for finishers other than Kidney Shot. Rush-downs are best used against players with high health because it puts out the highest damage over time. It is, however, vulnerable to classes that can CC you easily since you spend most of your time out of stealth. *Control Back in the days before the Burning Crusade, Control was king. It was possible to stun-lock most classes from 100-0 and the mark of a good rogue was one who never used his/her cooldowns to win a duel. With the release of The Burning Crusade, however, it became impossible to beat anyone as a rogue without using one's cooldowns due to the high amount of health/armor/resilience players now have. Stun-locking a player from 100-0 now is a near impossibility, unless there is an extreme gear discrepancy between the rogue and his opponent. With this in mind, knowing how to maintain control over an opponent is still an important skill for PVP- it is just not as important as it used to be. With a pure Control style, you should try to avoid using DOTs since Gouge and Blind are crucial to keeping an opponent locked down. Putting a Gouge in-between a Cheap Shot and a Kidney Shot gives you an extra combo point for your Kidney Shot and allows you to regenerate energy for your Kidney Shot combo. Careful use of Blind will allow you to re-stealth and re-open or will give you an opportunity to bandage up. Kicks must be carefully timed- against a caster class, you should try kicking the opponent as soon as their stun wears off to maximize your chance of interrupting a spell. With Improved Kick, it is even more imperative since the added silence effect gives you a 2-second window for your next CC should you fail to interrupt a spell. Using a Control style, you run the risk of drawing out a battle too long to the point where you run out of cooldowns and are basically dead. Since you sacrifice a lot of DPS to keep an opponent locked down, it is best used against medium or low HP opponents. Using a control style is also the best way to take out a healing opponent; whether it be a Restoration Shaman, Restoration Druid, or a Holy Priest; since the frequent interrupts will prevent them from healing through your damage. Control however requires a little luck to pull off smoothly- should one of your Kidney Shots get dodged/parried, you'll lose momentum and may have a hard time recovering afterwards. *Burst The term "burst" refers to the technique of doing a high amount of damage in a short period of time. A pure burst style thus requires re-stealthing and re-opening several times to execute multiple bursts of damage- needless to say, it is something unique to Subtlety Rogues. For Shadowstep Rogues, a Premeditation into a Shadowstep Ambush will take out a huge chunk of health in the very first strike and will also give you 3-4 combo points to build upon or with which to execute an early finisher. For Seal Fate/Premeditation Rogues, a Premeditation into an Ambush may yield anywhere from 3-5 combo points in the opener with which you can use a Cold Blood Eviscerate for maximum damage upfront. The key to playing a burst style is to restealth as much as possible and stay stealthed until you can land the opener. Since there is a significant amount of dead time in-between bursts, it is not wise to use it against healing classes unless you are certain you can kill the target in 1-2 bursts. Otherwise, the target will simply heal through your bursts and you'll have wasted a lot of cooldowns. This style is best used against lightly-armored targets, especially those who cannot be locked down easily- most specifically, the Mage. It also excels in rogue v rogue duels since stealth, more often than not, is the key to victory in such duels. With these three archetypes established, it is important to note which talent builds are best and worst for rushdown, control, and burst styles. In short: *Assassination/Mutilate builds are second to none for control, good for rush downs (assuming you have Dual-wield Specialization), and weak at bursting since their primary burst comes in the form of Cold Blood, a three minute cooldown. *Combat builds are the best for rush downs due to their high sustained dps, poor at control (better if they are mace-specced), and decent at bursting with Blade Flurry and Adrenaline Rush. *Subtlety builds are superb at bursting, weak in rush downs due to their lack of white damage and slow out-of-stealth combo point generation, and decent at control (provided they restealth multiple times in each encounter). *Seal Fate/Premeditation builds are also great at Bursting, good at control due to a high combo point generation along with Quick Recovery to minimize energy loss in case of a whiff, and weak at rush downs due to a lower sustained DPS compared to Assassination and Combat builds. PvP Trinkets As of Patch 2.1.2, : "Insignia of the Alliance, Insignia of the Horde, Medallion of the Alliance, and Medallion of the Horde have all been redesigned. The trinkets for all classes now have the same effect: Dispels all movement impairing effects and all effects that cause loss of control of your character." This means that Kidney Shot and Cheap Shot, but also the Deadly Throw debuff, Poisons, Sap, Blind and Gouge can be removed by any class at any time. Daze (from Blade Twisting) is surprisingly also affected - this misconception exists because there is in fact a difference between player Daze and mob Daze. Mob Daze is in fact only removable by complete immunity effects (pally bubble, Ice Block), while player Daze is treated as any other movement-impairing effect. This also means that the 3 second silence from Garrote is more important than ever, completely shutting down casters without the threat of being removed. Classes Rogue When fighting another Rogue, it is important to get the first hit. Since most Rogues are specced shadowstep right now and have both Master of Deception and Heightened Senses, this is particularly difficult for combat or mutilate rogues. When you do see the other rogue, try to sap them. Removing them from stealth will give you a huge advantage. After allowing time to regain your energy, you should use cheap shot to stun the rogue. Fighting a rogue is similar to fighting a warrior: you should keep them stunned. A smart rogue won't trinket until you blind, so be prepared for that. Some rogues may trinket your kidney shot as well, in which case you should immediately blind, restealth, sap, and then open with cheap shot again. Blind and sap are necessary to allow diminishing returns to fade before using cheap shot again. Against rogues you should be using crippling poison and deadly poison (although this obviously isn't always an option since it's unlikely you're switching poisons for every fight if you're in a battleground or any large-scale PvP). Remember not to blind when deadly poison is ticking or it will break. Remember to use any dodge abilities when going toe-to-toe with a rogue, especially since, unlike warriors, rogues do not have abilities to counter your dodge except dodging themselves. Evasion and ghostly strike do stack, giving a total of +65% dodge not including base dodge. Warrior If you're fighting a good warrior you do not want to get hit at all. Well-geared warriors can cut you down in a few attacks, as well as resist or dodge many of your abilities. Be ready to blow some cooldowns. One method that is very successful against warriors is to employ all the DoTs available to you, and then kiting him with Crippling poison, dive-bombing occasionally to either incur large damage or go for the killing blow. If you know you are fighting a warrior, equip Deadly poison in your main hand, and Crippling poison in your offhand. Wound poison instead in main is helpful in encounters where healers are involved. Due to the warrior ability second wind, stunning an arms specced warrior will cause them to get healed for 10% of their health in the form of a HoT. There are two general methods of killing warriors: stunning and bleeding. When stunning, the rogue opens with sap. The warrior will use berserker rage to get out of it. Be careful of shouts, as they will all take you out of stealth. Open with cheap shot, followed by kidney shot. The warrior will (hopefully) trinket one of these. The rogue should then blind, allowing for a restealth, sap, and time for diminishing returns to fade from cheap shot and kidney shot to cool down. After stunning for a second time, vanish and restart the process. If necessary (and if specced for it), you may use preparation, vanish again, and stun the warrior for a fourth time if the warrior isn't dead already. Make good use of gouge while fighting the warrior to minimize the amount of time the warrior is free to move around. Always use crippling poison with warriors. The bleed method is harder than the stun method. The rogue opens with garrote, shivs crippling poison, and eventually executes a 5-point rupture against the warrior. Following this, the rogue may either vanish (blind -> restealth is not an option due to the DoTs) or attempt to stay in the dead zone between melee range and intercept range, the latter being much harder to execute than the former. Priest Fighting priests is similar to fighting warlocks. Your best option here is to stun the priest to death, using the CS -> KS -> Blind -> Restealth -> Sap -> Repeat method. Discipline priests are hardest, as their ability pain suppression will absorb a large amount of damage. Try to interrupt their heals, and don't forget about their DoTs (especially if they're shadow). It's easy to start whacking a priest and forget about their DoTs which will ultimately kill you unless you use cloak of shadows. Their fear is on a moderate cooldown (about 20 seconds, depending on talents), so have your trinket ready. They don't have any abilities like preparation: they cannot fear twice unless they wait out the cooldown. It is, however, a instant cast fear so be careful of that. Use wound poison and crippling poison against them. Against shadow priests, a common tactic is to fear, throw on some DoTs as you run away, and then mind flay you as you run back. Use shadowstep to negate this. Save cloak of shadows for the end of the fight when you can kill them in the 5 seconds of immunity it provides. Use expose armor to increase their damage taken. Mage Open with garrote on mages to apply the silence effect. The mage will immediately blink or frost nova and run away. If the mage blinks, use shadowstep to catch up and be sure to shiv crippling poison to limit his mobility. If he frost novas, he will begin to attack you at range. Use deadly throw to interrupt his casting (if you have the PvP gloves), or vanish to escape frost nova. If he has already used blink, you can then cheap shot to open on him and apply a rupture. Mages have excellent mobility and it can be hard for rogues to stay on them. The key is to try and do as much damage as you can without having to be within melee range. Make good use of garrote, rupture, and deadly throw. If you have time to prepare, you should also use deadly poison. As with all cloth-wearers, it is advisable to use expose armor to increase the damage they take. Druid Druids will almost always fight in one of their forms: moonkin, cat, bear, or caster (sometimes using tree as well). Druids have arguably the best mobility in the game, and are especially difficult for rogues. When fighting a druid in cat form, treat them as another rogue. When fighting a druid in bear form, treat them as a warrior. When fighting a druid in caster form, make sure to use wound poison and try to stun them to prevent them from healing themselves. When fighting a druid in moonkin form, fight them like you would a mage. Although they don't have blink, their superb mobility skills will require that you fight them in a similar fashion. Some druids alternate between forms in combat. In this case, try to catch them in cat or caster form where they are weakest. Expect every Balance Druid to have Nature's Grasp, which has a (base) chance of 35% to afflict you with Entangling Roots for every one of your hits. Either Vanish or CloS, and quickly catch up to them, making sure to apply a snare. Alternatively, wait until they start casting Starfire (this is the hard-hitting spell) and use CloS at the last minute. In summary, remove their ability to kite you while Moonfire/Starfire spamming, and don't be afraid to use Expose Armor. Hunter Against hunters, you should attempt to keep them within range as much as possible. Letting them slip out of melee range for a second could completely change the outcome of the fight. Always make sure crippling poison is up. Because of their pet, blinding for a restealth is not an option so use deadly poison (if you have time to prepare) and rupture. Ignore their pet unless they activate bestial wrath: in that case, you should attempt to vanish and wait out the ability. Bestial wrath lasts 18 seconds. A common hunter tactic is to lay down a trap on top of a flare and stand right on top of it. The patient rogue will wait for the hunter to get bored and leave or wait for the flare to fade and attack in between flares. If you need to attack while the flare is up, you can shadowstep and cheap shot before the flare removes stealth if you're fast enough. The hunter will almost always lay down a freezing trap on top of a flare (freezes you in a block of ice). If they're beast mastery, trinket the trap and then shiv crippling poison to keep the hunter close by. There's no way the hunter can out-DPS you in melee combat unless there's a huge gear difference. If the hunter is marksmanship, they will freeze you, move away, and then scatter shot. Wait for the scatter shot before you use your trinket. If you're unsure of their spec, stay in the trap and wait for them to move away. If they scatter shot, they're marksmanship. If they don't, they're probably beast mastery. Remember that in an emergency you can use cloak of shadows to remove hunters mark (along with anything else) and escape. Just watch out for flares. If you're beating the hunter to a pulp, they'll probably use snake trap as a last resort and try to get distance. In that case, use cloak of shadows and finish them off. Shadowstep or sprint if necessary. Warlock The trick to Warlocks is identifying early on if the Warlock is actually killable. To summarize, Warlocks come in two varieties: Soul-Linked and non Soul-Linked, the latter being possible for a rogue to take on and the former being impossible (assuming equal gear and skill). *Destruction Warlocks Among non Soul-Linked Warlocks, Destruction Warlocks are by far the easiest to take down. They are susceptible to every CC a rogue can dish out, the majority of their damage comes from spells with a cast time that can be easily interrupted, they have no instant-cast fear and assuming the Warlock is specced for PVE, they will likely have high +spell damage but low health. These Warlocks, unlike Affliction Warlocks, also have no snares so keeping up with them should never be a problem. The only barrier to destroying such Warlocks is their pet, namely the Succubus. Taking out a Warlock with a Succubus can be done in two ways, either by killing the pet first and then the Warlock or by killing the Warlock while the pet is CC'ed with Blind. To kill the pet first, you'll have to trinket out of the first charm, Blind the Warlock and then proceed to take out the pet either by Vanishing and re-opening on it or just by smacking it really really hard with your weapon. With the pet down, the Warlock will be easy-pickings. The other strategy requires that you trinket out of the first charm, Blind the Succubus, and rush down the Warlock as fast as possible. Either way, it shouldn't be too hard- Destruction Warlocks are one of the easiest classes for a rogue to fight. *Affliction Warlocks Affliction Warlocks, on the other hand, are much more difficult to fight. In many ways, Affliction Warlocks resemble Shadow Priests. It is important, however, to note a few significant differences between them and Shadow Priests. First of all, they have a pet which can either provide improved stealth detection (Felhunter) or a powerful shield sometime mid-fight (Voidwalker). The Succubus is an unlikely choice since you'll be covered in DOTs from head to toe and the Imp, though great for Dark Pact, is borderline useless in PVP. This pet, if used wisely, can also harass you much like a Hunter's pet, preventing you from re-stealthing without using Vanish. Secondly, the Warlock snare is a dispellable debuff called Curse of Exhaustion completely different from the Shadow Priest's channeled snare, Mind Flay. This is an important distinction for Gnome rogues since it means that Escape Artist will remove it, unlike Mind Flay. It is, however, easily recastable and can be executed on the run, unlike Mind Flay, making it trivially easy for them to kite you. Thirdly, the amount of health a Warlock receives by Drain-Tanking is far greater than the returns a Shadow Priest receives from Vampiric Embrace. It is thus imperative that you interrupt Drain Life as soon as possible to prevent this and lock out their most important school of magic, Shadow. Finally, unlike most casting classes, it is physically impossible to run an Affliction Warlock out of mana. Between Life Tap/Drain Life/Siphon Life and Dark Pact, their mana can be constantly replenished. Having drawn out these distinctions, it is easy to see how fighting an Affliction Warlock can be significantly more difficult than fighting a Shadow Priest. In order to defeat an Affliction Warlock, you must have a lot of luck, high dps and perfect control over them at all times. Allowing even one gap in your control barrage can mean an Insta-Howl of Terror or a Death Coil to turn the tables on you. Only Mutilate rogues and Seal Fate/Premeditation rogues are capable of this level of control. Opening with a Cheap Shot is a must- it locks them in place, allowing for a continuous stream of damage and awarding you 2-3 combo points. If you are Mutilate, cast Mutilate for 4-5 points; if SF/Premed, cast Backstab for 3-5 combo points. When Cheap Shot ends, use your Kidney Shot and proceed to unload on them. Assassin rogues have the advantage here due to the 10% Find Weakness damage buff and a possible 9% damage buff from Improved Kidney Shot if you're specced into it. During the Kidney Shot, cast Cold Blood Mutilate for 3-4 combo points, use Eviscerate, and cast another Mutilate just before the Kidney Shot ends. Similarly, an SF/Premed rogue will want to Backstab for 4-5 points and Cold Blood Eviscerate just before the Kidney Shot ends. If you're lucky, the Eviscerate will have given you an extra 25 energy, allowing you to squeeze off a vanish just as the Kidney Shot ends. If it doesn't, you're kinda screwed and will have to improvise. Remember, you can drink your thistle tea (if your opponent has a touch of lag) - it'll get you right back at it! Once Vanished, run away and wait a bit to prevent diminishing returns on your stuns. If the Warlock tries to bandage, distract and reopen on him/her. As a Seal Fate/Premeditation rogue, you'll be able to repeat this sequence two more times, eventually killing them if all goes well. As Mutilate however, your performance after the first Vanish is utterly crucial. If you reopen too early (or are forced to do so for whatever reason) expect diminishing returns on your Cheap Shot. In such a case, forgo using Mutilate and instead get ready to Gouge the Warlock as soon as they come out of the stun. As Gouge wears off, pop Cloak of Shadows, Mutilate them once and then Blind them as soon as you get enough energy. When Blind finally wears off, you'll have 5 combo points for a full Kidney Shot and the duration will have been long enough to prevent diminishing returns. At this point, go crazy and do everything in your power to finish them off. Of course, if the Warlock trinkets or resists any of these stuns, you'll be screwed :D. You ll have to fight until one drops. *Demonology Warlocks Soul-Linked Warlocks are basically much like the Warlocks above except with mitigation and health on par with Warriors and hunter-like pets. These generally come in two varieties, Siphon Life/Soul Link and Felguard/Soul Link. Siphon Life/Soul Link Warlocks use the Voidwalker for an additional 10% physical damage mitigation (raising their effective armor level to 30% reduction + whatever their natural armor reduction is) and kite you around much like regular Affliction Warlocks. Felguard/Soul Link Warlocks are all brute force- their pet takes out a large amount of damage and has the ability to stun-charge you from range. There is no accepted strategy to fighting these types of Warlocks, much like how there is no accepted strategy for Warriors fighting Frost Mages. The best way to beat this type of Warlock is through a moral victory- just don't fight them and be a good sport if you absolutely must. Chances are the Warlock in question will gloat over you; yet, knowing the insurmountable odds involved, you can walk away the better man, having fought the noblest fight with dignity and honor. Althougth there is a way to beat these warlock, the way is a stun/rush down/all cooldowns strategy, but chances are that you will get defeted, but its worth a try. *all warlock are stunlockable but you must do it fast or you die =). Paladin This is one of the most difficult classes for Rogues to beat. Paladins are basically tanks that can heal themselves, so it makes it that much harder. There are several things to remember whilst fighting Paladins. The basic rule is "trick them into popping their shield, then restealth and kill them". * Never let them Divine Shield/heal themselves. That effectively restarts the fight for you minus some of your health/cooldowns. If they cast Divine Shield, simply waste 1 second checking if they're going to heal themselves, if you see them beginning to cast heal, use bandage fast, and when you're done, or they begin moving to you, move back, you must be out of combat at the moment, so stealth fast, and reopen the fight, with you and the Paladin full on HP, but he's probably low on mana. * If a Paladin knows you're coming, they will spam Consecration so they can break your stealth. There are three things to do when they do this, one is to stay waiting until they feel like you left, just give up and try attacking him between two Consecrations (which is not preferred) or Shadowstep and Cheap shot or garrote before Consecration takes you out of stealth (this is risky but with a fast enough finger is possible, i have done it myself with both flare and consecration -Contributed by Marblez-Dath'remar). *Another option is you can simply allow him to use all his mana on the consecrations, then move in. - Cloak of Shadows does NOT remove stealth and thus if you wish, you can use this to get through consecrate. Though this is not really recommended as this removes the ability to use it in combat. An alternative that I like to do is just to jump the consecration and cheap shot the paladin. - Subtlety rogues may try to blind the paladin from a safer distance (most paladins will turn and jump around while spamming consecration) and quickly restealth to assure the opening move. However, as with cloak of shadows, this sacrifices an important ability if you're trying to stun-lock your oponent. * Keeping a Paladin stunlocked is essential, therefore * Cheap Shot is a valid opener against a Paladin unless your ambush gives a guaranteed kill. However many Paladins will simply Divine Shield out of it and kill you, which is a low chance that they might do it, usually a Paladin prefers the big chance that he wins against you, which means saving his Divine Shield for a rainy day -When low on HP-, so wasting the Divine Shield only for stopping stunlock is useless, and a waste of a 5 minutes cooldown, and a making-sure he's free from Divine Shields for 1 minute, thanks to Forbearance. Once they know you're there, level 1 consecrates will easily prevent you from getting another opener. * Evasion is invaluable against a Paladin. This will allow you to dodge every hard-hitting 2-hander blow. Retribution trees have their own versions of stunlock with hammer and repent and will slam you with a lot of damage in that time with Seal of Command, Consecration, and Crusader Strike. Never open on a protection tree unless you're very sure of what you're doing; holy shield, Redoubt, and Reckoning easily tear Rogues apart. Probably your easiest fight will be with a Holy tree since Rogues fare better against casters. Good Paladins will shield themselves out of stunlocks at all the right times, spam Consecration to stop Vanish, and keep you slow and unhappy with Judgement of Justice. Hammer of Wrath can be used in a far range and the 1 sec casting time makes it very hard to counter, so once you're low on HP, and you see the Paladin casting his Hammer of Wrath, say your prayers. Shaman Rogues fare pretty well against Shamans because they have no crowd control. You can use Evasion to negate their melee damage and Cloak of Shadows + Deadly Throw to avoid being kited. Provided you maintain a certain degree of control over your opponent during the entire fight, you should be able to kill most Shamans without problems. Anticipate the trinket as you stun them and have energy for a Gouge ready. You should stunlock and control Elemental and Enhancement Shamans, and try to rush down Restoration Shamans. Wound poison is a must against Resto Shamans, because you want him to waste as much mana as possible. If you see a poison cleansing totem being dropped, kill it fast and get back in his face. Resto Shamans cannot kite you well because they waste the Water Totem slot on poison cleansing, and will waste too much mana/global cooldown on using their poison removal spell. Note that if the Shaman sets you up you may lose the fight, this is especially true for Windfury bombing enhancement Shamans. As of patch 2.2, Earthbind Totem doesn't remove stealth anymore. Use Cloak of Shadows and get the opener, or if you have 2/2 Dirty Tricks simply sap him and kill the totems, then restealth and get the opener. Category:Guides Category:PvP Category:Tactics